Testosterone as effective as antidepressants for men?

January 27, 2019

An article in The Times last year stated, “Testosterone is as effective as the use of antidepressants for men with depression, according to an overview of research. Doctors should consider Testosterone as an alternative to medicines that are under increasing scrutiny about overuse and the effects of withdrawal scientist suggested. Psychiatrists said that the results showed that testosterone was likely to have a role in treating depression but that further studies were needed. It was twice as effective as a placebo, a level comparable to antidepressants, a team from Technische Universitadt Dresden said in the JAMA Psychiatry.

Dr. Savage has seen many patients over the years who have been diagnosed as suffering from depression by their GP and given antidepressants, indeed often several sorts of antidepressants with no benefit to the patient. Some of the patients have raised with their GP following their own research on the internet, “could this be testosterone deficiency?” but this suggestion has mainly been dismissed and indeed, sadly most GP’s have refused to do the appropriate blood tests.

As you are probably aware, there is great concern about the mental health of young people and indeed, even the worrying suicide rate in young men, one wonders is there a correlation?

A patient has even said to me “If you were told that the diagnosis is depression, you have failed to respond to either antidepressants or talking therapies, you would feel desperate, wouldn’t you”.

At the other end of the age scale, I can always remember seeing a man in his 70’s who had been diagnosed with severe depression by his GP, unresponsive to treatment who had been therefore referred to a Psychiatrist, however, this too made no difference. His wife in particular was severely distressed about her husbands state but told me that what was one of the most distressing things about her husbands symptoms was drenching night sweats to the degree that neither of them could sleep. This was to me a classic symptom of testosterone deficiency and indeed I did the appropriate blood tests to test for low testosterone and we all waited with baited breath to see if in fact this was the diagnosis. IT WAS! He had a fantastic response to testosterone treatment, they told me it had changed both their lives and indeed had given them back their quality of life in retirement.

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